Draft Traveller Accommodation Programme – public consultation

Every five years, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is obliged to prepare a Traveller Accommodation Programme, outlining the plans to address the accommodation needs of members of the travelling community in the county. The 2014-2018 was passed by councillors on the 13th of January 2014, and a new one (2019-2024) will be voted on by the new Council in October.

Please be aware that the Draft Traveller Accommodation Programme 2019-2024 is currently open to public consultation, and submissions should be made by 4pm on 31 May 2019.

You can also e-mail a submission to TAP@dlrcoco.ie or telephone the dlr Traveller Accommodation Unit on (01) 204-7091 with any queries.

This programme outlines how the Council plans to house 50 traveller families in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council in the coming five years, and it still contains a proposal for a new site, projected for the Blackrock electoral area, adjacent to Stillorgan Grove, within the grounds of St. John of God’s Hospital.

In 2014, I expressed grave reservations about this part of the Traveller Accommodation Programme in particular. I spoke and voted against this Programme, on the grounds that this part of it will cost millions of euro to realise and is ill-conceived in its current location, in the grounds of a hospital where those grounds are required by patients to recuperate.

I think it would be irresponsible to approve a proposal where there are still no specifics about what will be built or where exactly. I anticipate that any progress on this project is as many as ten years away, since the process will require a compulsory purchase order (which may well be challenged in the Courts), millions of euro to be allocated from central government, design, planning, a Part 8 process with another public consultation, another vote of the full County Council, post-design, and construction, before anyone can even occupy the houses.